Rosalind Wiseman's Blog, page 13
September 24, 2019
Meet Lydia! Interview With Cultures of Dignity Intern
Lydia is a highschool freshman from Boulder, CO. She will be helping with event marketing, managing social media and revising the Owning Up curriculum.
Meet Cultures of Dignity’s newest intern!
Cultures of Dignity: Tell us a little about yourself!
Lydia: I am 14 years old and just started my freshman year at Boulder High School. I was born in Boulder and have lived here ever since. I am a competitive rock climber and have been climbing for 12 years. Aside from climbing, in my free time, I like to spend time outside, hangout with friends and family, and play with my dog.
Cultures of Dignity: Why are you working with Cultures of Dignity?
I am very conscious about the miscommunication that can happen between teachers and students surrounding certain serious topics. I am excited to help brainstorm ways to help teachers feel more comfortable talking about these tough topics with their students.
Cultures of Dignity: If you could have any superpower what would it be?
If I could have any superpower, I would have the ability to stop time. I always feel like I am working against the clock to get stuff done. If I could stop time, I could always do stuff on my own schedule. For example, if I am feeling tired in the morning I could just pause time and go back to sleep for a few hours and wake up in time to get to school. Also, if I forgot to do a homework assignment or procrastinated a project for too long, I could just pause time before the assignment is due and give myself as much time as I need to complete it.
Cultures of Dignity: What projects will you be working on with Cultures of Dignity?
I will be working on editing and revising the Owning Up curriculum, helping manage social media, and event marketing.
Cultures of Dignity: What is an issue you see in schools you want to fix?
An issue that I really want to work towards fixing is the misunderstanding surrounding mental health. A lot of students have a basic understanding of the struggles people with certain mental illnesses deal with, but they don’t realize how serious it can actually be. Throughout school, I hear many people say stuff like “I’m so nervous about a test I am going to have an anxiety attack” or “I’m so depressed because I got a worse score than I wanted on an assignment.” Using these terms so lightly can make people who actually struggle with these mental illnesses feel like their feelings are invalid.
Learn about how we work with young people:
Recent Posts
Meet Lydia! Interview With Cultures of Dignity Intern
What Would Happen If Everyone Was Loyal To Each Other?
Rethinking Social-Emotional Health: Labels in Youth Culture
The post Meet Lydia! Interview With Cultures of Dignity Intern appeared first on Cultures of Dignity.
September 4, 2019
What Would Happen If Everyone Was Loyal To Each Other?
What does it mean to stay by friends through thick and thin? What does it mean to have each other’s back? What does loyalty really mean? Is it possible that being loyal to our values can be in contradiction to being loyal in our relationships with others?
The Dictionary definition of loyalty is “being fully supportive to someone or something.”
At Cultures of Dignity we build on this definition in two ways:
True loyalty: Supporting someone when it’s hard, unpopular, and may cost you in some way.
Forced loyalty: Supporting or agreeing with someone even if they are doing something you don’t agree with or know is wrong.
In our families, our friendships, our work environments, among other parents, or in our own social media communities, we may catch ourselves acting in ways and saying things we really don’t agree with. We force out a laugh when a coworker says something inappropriate instead of communicating what we really think. We ignore a social media post of a friend or family member that makes us uncomfortable. We stay silent when a close friend is making poor decisions in relationships or with drugs and alcohol.
At Cultures of Dignity, we aren’t proposing that we run around being each other’s thought-police or micro-managing everyone else’s behavior. However, if people we know are taking away someone’s dignity, we need to be loyal to the higher value of treating others with worth and do something. Otherwise, we are acting like the archetype of a teenage group that can’t say what they really think or feel to the members of their group.
Just as we ask high school students, we need to ask ourselves these uncomfortable questions…
Do I agree with what I am seeing or what my group is doing?
If I don’t agree, is it possible to go back and tell people in my group what I really think?
If not….
What is the worst outcome if I tell people I disagree? (True loyalty)
What is the worst possible outcome if I stay silent? (Forced loyalty)
It’s difficult to admit all of this. But if we don’t, we aren’t living in accordance with our values and we allow group dynamics to guide our thinking and behavior.
There’s way too much group-think in the world. Let’s do something about it. Let’s be loyal to the higher cause of treating ourselves and others with dignity.
This originally appeared in our newsletter Communiquette.
Recent Posts
What Would Happen If Everyone Was Loyal To Each Other?
Rethinking Social-Emotional Health: Labels in Youth Culture
How To Navigate A Fight
Get the Cultures of Dignity Newsletter!
Email:*
The post What Would Happen If Everyone Was Loyal To Each Other? appeared first on Cultures of Dignity.
August 20, 2019
Rethinking Social-Emotional Health: Labels in Youth Culture
Nikki is a rising second-year at Grinnell College and a Cultures of Dignity summer intern. She is majoring in psychology with concentration interests in statistics, neuroscience, and public policy, all in hopes of pursuing a career in social work. In her free time, she swims a whole lot and loves to explore the outdoors.
Rethinking Social-Emotional Health: Labels in Youth Culture
By Nikki Schlegel, Cultures of Dignity Intern
What a try-hard.
Could they be any more blonde?
They’re so psycho.
Young adults are often quick to judge their peers and label them with quick, poignant adjectives. Labeling theory states that people act in ways that correspond with how they are labeled by their peers. The negative effect of basic name-calling is common knowledge, but taking this a step further and studying labels as a contributor to youth wellness can illuminate new ways to approach the trials and tribulations of adolescence. How can we holistically understand the social and emotional significance of labels on teens? How can young people find the courage to treat others with dignity and resist harmful labeling? I researched four explanations of social labeling with the goal of equipping young people with the skills needed to make educated choices about labeling themselves and their peers.
Labels in social psychology
Labels serve a range of functions, from simplifying ingroups and outgroups, to establishing us vs. them mentality, to clarifying the world around us and making interactions easier. Labels are heuristics – mental shortcuts that quickly summarize behaviors and identities. However, these heuristics can reinforce stereotyping and overemphasize reputations. If we label someone as sporty, our brains prioritize and remember all athletic-related traits about them and leave a limited amount of attentional space to notice non-athletic qualities. This is why stereotyping through labels is so enduring and reputations are so difficult to see beyond unless they are actively resisted.
Labels in biological psychology
Many of us have been conditioned through popular media to associate being popular with words and phrases such as blonde, attractive, rude to parents, rich, and many friends. This sequencing of words forms neural networks of association, a process where neurons containing cognitive information of similar category are linked together to free up the brain’s capacity for complex thought. Neural networks of association are important because they deepen stereotyping and reinforce clique myths. After the brain learns the word popular for the first time, the words and phrases comprising the network are an automatic response. This constant reinforcement explains why Regina George is the face of the stereotypical Mean Girl – she represents what we have been taught to see as popular and what our brains have solidified in our neural networks as social fact.
Labels in clinical psychology
It is pertinent to know when labeling is appropriate in a clinical setting, specifically concerning psychiatric disorders. Those suffering from disorders should be granted validation and specificity of treatment. But we must also recognize when casual labeling perpetuates harmful stereotypes about mental health and exaggerates the difference between normal and abnormal. For example: when teens have mood swings, parents may jokingly call their children “bipolar”. This label oversimplifies the bipolar condition and tells the wrong narrative about what it means to live with bipolar disorder. Because parents are a primary agent of socialization in teens’ lives, this narrative will most likely be internalized.
Labels in the sociology of deviance
Labels are a way to give arbitrary labels to subjective behavior. The process of labeling behavior defines who is deviant and who is socially tame. Behavior is always defined as acceptable or unacceptable in context. If our peers make up the majority of our social context and source of validation and they label us as weird, we internalize that label, regardless if what we do is truly weird or not. Humans are defined by more than just one word, but social labeling limits this insight.
Where do we go from here?
Labeling is a necessary evil: important to make sense of the world around us, but a primary enabler of stereotyping. Solutions take consciousness, awareness, and bravery to rethink how we classify and define our social worlds.
First, we must actively resist the automatic process of labeling. It will continue to occur (even after understanding the psychological consequences), but at least now we can recognize when we are misusing labels. We must revisit old cliches like thinking about the power of a single word and being aware of the consequences of language.
Second, we must remember that context is key. We must learn what situations warrant helpful labeling and hurtful labeling. By doing this, bravery begets dignity when we can challenge and breakdown existing labels that we know are unjust, even if it means having difficult conversations with close peers and/or family members. It’s on us to employ our empathy and decide when labels cross moral lines and deny basic human worth.
And third, we must incorporate holism in our interactions and resist judgment. Describing behavior with greater clarity than a single word is one way to illuminate the ways in which labels restrict identities.
Labels present a unique conundrum to young people, but the paths for improving as a society are flourishing. The more willing we are to recognize labeling as a critical component of youth culture, the more likely we are to create a culture of dignity where young people are free to label themselves as they see fit.
To read more about labels and view a list of references, click here
If you have questions or comments for Nikki, email curious@culturesofdignity.com — We would love to hear from you!
Recent Posts
Rethinking Social-Emotional Health: Labels in Youth Culture
How To Navigate A Fight
Social Media: Connection or Avoidance?
The post Rethinking Social-Emotional Health: Labels in Youth Culture appeared first on Cultures of Dignity.
August 13, 2019
How To Navigate A Fight
The following excerpt from The Guide deals with fighting and the best ways to approach a tough confrontation. Being in 11th grade, and making my way through the public school system in Colorado, I’ve witnessed how fights can happen with guys. Although you may not be involved in a serious fight yourself, they’re common both at school and parties so you are more than likely to witness at least one either in real life or online. With fights being filmed and spread across social media it is crucial to understand the ways to work around these situations.
A Guy Hates Your Face:
How to navigate a fight
I’m sure the guy who “hates your face” has a miserable home life and if you knew the details you’d feel sorry for him … which doesn’t matter at all when he’s in your face trying to start something. This usually happens when you’re out with your friends having a good time at a party, a concert, at school, etc. The good thing is that this guy is usually with a group of friends who just want to have a good time and can get him to calm down. The bad thing is that they may be dumb enough to think they have to back him up no matter how annoying he is or they think it’s funny to see him be an ass.
Also, and really different than one our parents were growing up, is how common it is for fights to be filmed and broadcast online. Even if it seems like a small deal, any fight will become entertainment for the bystanders and everyone that sees it online. The guy harassing you loves the idea of a video of him bashing your face spreading all across the school which makes him that much more of a danger.
So when you’re in the moment of dealing with this guy, the easiest thing to do is not be there. As in leave. Sure, you want to stay at the party, but if you’re heading toward a fight, the night won’t end well anyway. Fun doesn’t include having your face smashed in or having to deal with police because you were at a party that got out of control and somehow it looks like you were part of the problem.
You can also try de-escalation or distraction by using humor, but not at the bully’s or anyone else’s expense. If you start making fun of him, that’s a surefire way to trigger a fight, and if you redirect by making fun of someone else, you’re just contributing to douchebag behavior.
Just be prepared for the possibility that nothing you say is going to stop that guy from wanting to fight. If that’s the case, then you have a choice to make: walk away toward safety or you stand your ground.
Standing Your Ground
There are times in life when you may have to fight, and it’s going to go better if you prepare. By all means, take a few MMA or martial arts classes, or even get way into it and make it a regular part of your life. Just do yourself a favor: learn from someone who actually knows realistic strategies; you aren’t in a movie. Look for qualities (whether they’re male or female) that truly reflect internal personal strength. That means they don’t brag and try to be tough all the time. And they don’t look for fights in real life. If you find a calm, humble boxing or martial arts teacher, these people are great to hang around anyway, even if you never get into a fight. It’s a win-win no matter what.
You’ve Had It
If someone’s constantly going after you, you may get to the point where you refuse to be bullied anymore. When and if you come to that conclusion, this is serious, because ultimately no one will be able to defend you but you. Even if an older kid or adult is protecting you, they can’t do it all the time and at some point, the bully may want to go after you when you’re alone. Remember the goal: maximize your projection of mental and physical strength.
With that in mind, it’s better to choose when this will happen. The other message you want to communicate somehow is, “We don’t have to do this but if we do fine, I will.” This puts the choice in the bully’s hands, but you’re setting the terms. The bully’s power is based on the illusion of his power—an illusion that he needs to manage carefully. Victory doesn’t have to mean winning a fight outright. It can mean facing that person with honor and courage no matter what happens. It can mean is settling the issue so that the problem stops, without putting yourself in a situation where you could get seriously injured with no help nearby.
The best way to do this is by having a few friends with you when you have the confrontation, and you definitely don’t want to be outnumbered. Their presence will make your bully less likely to initiate a fight; your friends can also ensure that if a fight does happen, it stays fair and doesn’t get out of hand. If having friends around isn’t an option, at least try to make sure you’re in a fairly public place with other people reasonably nearby. If you really get in trouble and need help, you can’t depend on the crowd to help you. That’s called bystander effect and it means that people in a group often wait for someone else to intervene. So think about your exit strategy; remember you are moving towards safety not away from danger.
Recent Posts
How To Navigate A Fight
Social Media: Connection or Avoidance?
Rosalind Wiseman On Not Overloading Our Kids After School
The post How To Navigate A Fight appeared first on Cultures of Dignity.
July 30, 2019
Social Media: Connection or Avoidance?
We can’t stand the quiet.
Standing at the bus stop. Waiting in line at the post office. Coming home from school. We immediately play a game, scroll through social media, or stare at our home screens. We can’t seem to tolerate simply being and are constantly seeking distraction. But distraction from what? Why is it so difficult to let our minds quiet?
If we were quiet, we would have to sit with our emotions and our thoughts. Maybe we would let our minds go blank. Or, we would have to look around and connect with others and we don’t know how that’s going to go.
When we get on Instagram, we have a guarantee of social connection no matter how fleeting, superficial, or inconsequential to our lives. When we get on Xbox, we connect to playing a game or being entertained in a way that provides some certainty–we know what the rules are and if we don’t, we can learn and practice to get better.
Our distraction comes at such a cost. We sacrifice a quiet mind. A new idea. A meaningful connection with a neighbor.
It is time to focus, to engage, to connect. To see the meaning around us in real life so we can better handle the anxiety, meanness, and pessimism that is fed to us online.
So the next time we thoughtlessly and automatically pull out our phones or melt into the couch to play a game, let’s ask ourselves the following questions (inspired by our friend and colleague, Cam Adair):
When do I feel good using social media?
Am I using social media to connect with other people or deepen a relationship with them?
Am I doing this to distract myself? What do I want to distract myself from?
What am I missing out on by focusing on this device instead of what’s going on around me?
How am I feeling if I don’t use it? Am I thinking about it? Am I getting irritable?
What do I gain?
What do I lose?
Technology is integrated into every aspect of our lives and through it, we can make connections. But if we don’t stop and realize how it is impacting our interactions and relationships with people, we can lose ourselves in the process.
This originally appeared in our newsletter Communiquette.
Recent Posts
Social Media: Connection or Avoidance?
Rosalind Wiseman On Not Overloading Our Kids After School
What Are You Listening For?
Get the Cultures of Dignity Newsletter!
Email:*
The post Social Media: Connection or Avoidance? appeared first on Cultures of Dignity.
July 25, 2019
Rosalind Wiseman On Not Overloading Our Kids After School
Give it a listen and let us know what you think!
The blog post Pamela is referring to: Stop Asking So Many Questions
Recent Posts
Rosalind Wiseman On Not Overloading Our Kids After School
What Are You Listening For?
How to Confront Substance Abuse With Friends
The post Rosalind Wiseman On Not Overloading Our Kids After School appeared first on Cultures of Dignity.
July 3, 2019
What Are You Listening For?
Listening for connection, understanding, or confirming what you already believe?
Recently we co-facilitated a three-day training with 22 people from five continents with theInternational Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Our host was the Association for the Advancement of International Education and our goal was creating a new approach to connect Social Emotional Learning with child safety and protection.
In preparation for working with leaders from vastly different communities and cultures, we focused on how to create a space for us to truly listen and collaborate with one another. A foundation of our work at Cultures of Dignity has always been, “listening is being ready to be changed by what you hear.” But how do you break that down for people? We found inspiration in the work of Otto Scharmer, taught to us by consultants James Edwards and Emma Ruffin.
We were deeply inspired by their breakdown and categorization of listening. The four basic levels are:
1. Habitual Listening: Listening from habit to confirm what you already know (think: cognitive bias). We all do this. We listen to someone with decisions already made based on partial information and assumptions. It’s why so many of us only read and watch specific media outlets.
2. Factual Listening: Listening with an openness to new information that could change your opinion or perception. A clue that you are truly engaged in factual listening is when you say “Oh, I never would have thought of that.”
3. Empathic Listening: Listening to understand someone else’s experiences/perspective/reality. The key word is “understand”: when engaging in this level of listening the goal is to suspend judgement and engage an authentic quality of listening that comes from the heart.
4. Generative Listening: Listening with the intent to expand on old concepts and usher forward new ones. This is where “yes, and” comes in. Think collaboration, not competition.
Often when we are listening to one another and aren’t truly hearing the other person.
Take a moment to think about the people you most often interact with. Have you recently found yourself frustrated with a co-worker or a loved one? Perhaps it’s not the content of the conversation, but the intent behind your attention.
It is easiest and most tempting to fall into habitual listening, to listen for what you already know. So take a second to ask yourself, Am I listening to understand new information? Am I listening to understand different interpretations of an idea? Am I listening to receive orders? Am I listening to collaborate?
The next time you are with a person and find yourself listening in a way that does not serve the situation, take note, pause, and say something in your own words that communicates the following, “I need to take a moment and reset myself because I am not listening to you in the way this situation or you deserve.”
Get curious. Together, we can change the way we are seen and heard.
Recent Posts
What Are You Listening For?
How to Confront Substance Abuse With Friends
Meet Rocco! Interview with Cultures of Dignity Intern
Get the Cultures of Dignity Newsletter!
Email:*
The post What Are You Listening For? appeared first on Cultures of Dignity.
June 27, 2019
How to Confront Substance Abuse With Friends
I’m a high school student in Boulder Colorado, and although I haven’t dealt with any drug or alcohol abuse with my friends I think it’s important for both kids and adults to examine what their definition of a drug problem is and how to deal with it. In this passage from The Guide, it walks through the various people who may play a role in defining when a person has a drug problem and what to do about it. It walks through a way of solving the conflict while also acknowledging the difficult position you are put into as a friend of the person who is using.
How to Confront Substance Abuse With Friends
By Rosalind Wiseman
When you’re worried that someone you know may have a drinking/drug problem, the first thing that happens seems pretty basic—the people around the guy have concluded that he has a substance abuse problem. But it’s not as easy as it seems. When you think about who makes this decision, you naturally think of the guy’s friends, his girlfriend, his parents, or a coach. But all of these people define “a drinking problem” very differently, because the bar for that definition will be lowest for the adults, a bit higher for the girls, and extremely high for the guy’s friends.
For example, some parents—at least the ones who don’t buy alcohol for their kids—will think there’s a problem if they find the guy drunk or high more than once. Most girls think there’s a problem if the guy is drinking every weekend until he throws up or blacks out. But the guy’s inner circle, the ones most likely to know how much he’s actually using certainly wouldn’t agree with the adult assessment and probably wouldn’t agree with the girls because they themselves are probably using about the same amount. For example, throwing up or blacking out may be identified among the guys as a normal result of drinking too much on any particular night. It’s the body’s way of saying it has had enough.
All of this comes down to a simple point: the actual amount a guy drinks/drugs may not be enough for his friends to think there’s a problem they have to do something about. For guys to believe their friend has a problem, it has to have a serious impact on other aspects of his life. Like not showing up, being drunk or hung-over for meetings or practice, or performing significantly worse at games or other events. Another indicator could be getting super-aggressive and starting fights or insisting on driving. Or bombing a test, or not going to school.
My brother and his friends went to a party, and one of their friends blacked out, so they took him home. But when they went back to the party, the kid showed up a little later because he had driven himself there but had no recollection of how he did it. That was a clear indication. —Will, 20
Here’s an easy rule for you to follow. Since your bar may be high like I am describing, the second it occurs to you that your friend has a problem, this in itself proves he has a problem. If you start talking about it with your other friends, he definitely has a problem. Seriously, the fact that you all are talking about it is all the proof you need.
Once you’ve had your realization, what do you do? Part of your Stop and Setup is to think about who is going to tell him. If you do it one-on-one, it’ll be easier for him to blow you off. If you do it in a group, it’ll be easier for you to stand your ground, but it’ll be overwhelming for him. The ideal situation is to have the guy he’s closest to speak to him, with one or two other guys he respects along for backup. To state the obvious: this isn’t like one of those intervention shows you see on TV. You choose a time and place where he feels comfortable and there’s no chance of other people interrupting you. All of the guys agree that if he attacks or blows off the person who states the problem, the other guys will back him up. You all have to agree not to capitulate or say, “I don’t know, dude, I didn’t really want to be here.”
Photo by Banter Snaps on Unsplash
The other big challenge here is that there’s no way to prepare the guy for the conversation. It’s not possible to say, “Hey, dude, two days from now I’m going to tell you that you’re an alcoholic and need to get help.”
The timing of this SEAL (a conflict management strategy) is critical too. Don’t do it when anyone is drunk, high or hung-over the next morning (including you). For example, if he binges on Saturday night, your window to have the talk is between Sunday afternoon and Tuesday night. It’s also likely that this SEAL will take two conversations: one when you initially tell him, and then a follow-up to check in with him once he’s had time to think about what you said.
Part 1
YOU (Explain): I feel weird saying this, but I really think that you have a drinking problem.
FRIEND (Push-back): No way. Fuck off.
YOU (Explain): Seriously, I’m worried about you.
FRIEND (Push-back): What the fuck? You drink just as much as I do.
YOU (Acknowledge): I’ve been thinking about that. Recently, I’ve been cutting back because I didn’t want to bring this up without checking myself.
FRIEND (Push-back): This is insane.
YOU (Lock In): I know this sounds weird, but I really care about you, and I’m worried. I know I can’t force you to talk to someone, but I really think you need help.
FRIEND (Push-back): Fine. Now can we just drop this?
YOU (Lock In): Sure.
Part 2 (A Couple of Days Later)
YOU (Explain): How’s it going with the thing we talked about?
FRIEND (Push-back): What do you mean?
YOU: (Explain): You know what I’m talking about. Did you talk to anyone?
FRIEND (Push-back): I don’t know.
YOU (Affirm): I know I can’t force you, but I’d go with you if you wanted. I could just hang outside.
FRIEND (Push-back): I’m not going to some psychiatrist or drug counselor.
YOU (Lock In): I’m not saying that. What about Coach Smith or the counselor you liked last year? Just consider it.
Most high school guys will have a friend who needs help with drugs or alcohol. It’s one of those moments when you need to think about the times you’ve said, “I love you man, I love my guys, I’d do anything for my friends,” and realize that these are more than things you say. It’s what you do when it’s hard. When you’d rather do anything else but face this guy and tell him the truth. It’s in these moments that he desperately needs your support, even if he has no idea how to ask for it.
Recent Posts
How to Confront Substance Abuse With Friends
Meet Rocco! Interview with Cultures of Dignity Intern
Stories that Have Moved Me: Honest Dialogue on Honest Dialogue
The excerpt is adapted from Chapter 9: Wasteland in The Guide.
The post How to Confront Substance Abuse With Friends appeared first on Cultures of Dignity.
June 21, 2019
Meet Rocco! Interview with Cultures of Dignity Intern
Rocco Soucie is a 15 year old sophomore at Boulder High School who will be working on blogging, website development, and revising the Owning Up curriculum.
Meet Cultures of Dignity’s newest intern!
Cultures of Dignity: Tell us a little about yourself!
Rocco: I am a 15 years old sophomore at Boulder High School and I work towards making change and putting the “unity” in our community. While I was born in Boulder, Colorado is not my only home, as I have lived in Tamarindo, Costa Rica from ages 5-8. Living in a different culture taught me the differences in struggles and lifestyles between communities. During my free time I enjoy playing video games with an intricate storyline that sparks a curiosity within tech. This has inspired me to learn how to code so I can widen my scope of possibility. But when I’m not working with technology, you’ll find me in the rugby field running and tackling with some of my best friends.
Cultures of Dignity: Why are you working with Cultures of Dignity this summer?
Rocco: I am a strong social activist for many issues in my community. My mission is to enact change to create a better world for all people where everyone deserves basic human rights. I want to spread awareness and create actions for people to start speaking up and use their personal power to create a difference
Cultures of Dignity: If you could have any superpower what would it be?
Rocco: Shapeshifting. All super powers come from the anatomy of the body, and shapeshifting would allow me to access any super power. I mean what makes the Leader, from the Incredible Hulk, so smart? Why a big brain! So I can change my body to allow a big brain to exist and function.
Cultures of Dignity: What projects will you be working on with CoD?
Rocco: I will be working on editing and revising the Owning Up curriculum. I will also be writing, editing, researching, and organizing the Cultures of Dignity blogs and newsletters. My main goal for this is to create a program that kids can turn to that comforts, gives insight, and motivates them to step forward and create change in their society.
Cultures of Dignity: What is an issue you see in schools you want to fix?
Rocco: The school system in the United States needs a lot of changes to stand the test of time, stay relevant, and useful for our youth. One of my biggest concerns is that school uses tests and statistics to measure a students success and intelligence. This approach has students looked at with a “right-wrong” point of view that ignores parts of the student’s personal success such as creativity, ingenuity, or ability to interpret evidence. Another problem is the lack of technological learning in the classroom. Schools need to update their courses and focus on teaching the next generation important skills that are required in the day and age that we live in, where technology is in operated into our everyday life.
Learn about how we work with young people:
Recent Posts
Meet Rocco! Interview with Cultures of Dignity Intern
Stories that Have Moved Me: Honest Dialogue on Honest Dialogue
Meet Nikki! Interview with Cultures of Dignity Intern
The post Meet Rocco! Interview with Cultures of Dignity Intern appeared first on Cultures of Dignity.
June 11, 2019
Stories that Have Moved Me: Honest Dialogue on Honest Dialogue
Shannon Hancock teaches at the International School of Amsterdam and partners in Stories that Move: Toolbox Against Discrimination. She has spent her career challenging young people to find the power of their voice to make a positive impact on the world.
Below she reflects on how emotionally safe our classrooms are for all voices to be shared, even those expressing unpopular views.
Stories that Have Moved Me: Honest Dialogue on Honest Dialogue
By Shannon Hancock
Open and honest conversation about discrimination is difficult in any educational setting, but sometimes these conversations might be the most difficult in the educational setting you would least expect. Some of the best school classrooms may be actually censoring important exchanges of ideas. Are we creating safe spaces for members of our community to voice their true feelings? This is a question that troubles me.
I have been teaching around the world for 25 years — urban, rural, suburban, public, private, and across 3 continents. No matter where I have been, talking to faculty and students about tolerance and prejudice is tough and emotionally-charged.
Recently I was sitting in a training addressing stereotypes and prejudices at the International School of Amsterdam, an IB school, where I currently teach English language & literature and partner on Stories that Move: Toolbox Against Discrimination. One of the strengths of Stories that Move is in its use of real stories of young people to help move thinking. Together with 25 teachers, we watched a video of a 14 year old German boy, Tyrell, who was describing an experience in his primary school classroom. In his story he described a fellow 4th grade student trying to erase the color of his skin with her pencil eraser. When Tyrell protested saying, “What are you doing? You can’t rub out the color of my skin”, another male student retorted back, “Of course because your black skin is the devil’s work”. This is the heavy truth that many of our students live with every day.
We all have painful stories, whether it be about our gender, body image, color, culture, religion. In this workshop, our presenter asked us to express one word to describe our emotion for Tyrell’s story. I found that the word that came up for me very clearly was “guilty”. I could not uncover in that moment why I felt this, but it was there in neon for me to see and consider. Yet, when we came to share our words with the group, I could not bring myself to share mine. I felt nervous and I could feel my face getting hot; I felt that I might be judged by my colleagues; and to be truthful, I think I felt ashamed.
Since this workshop I have been thinking a lot about Tyrell, myself, and my classroom environment — Is it safe? Do I create a space for open, honest dialogue? What about with my teaching colleagues? How safe are their spaces for our students? Is teaching at an international school with 50 countries represented, where the students know what is ‘okay’ to say (or not say), actually a potentially dangerous environment to perpetuate stereotyping and bias by not allowing our students to speak freely?
“You cannot in abstract…start with an issue that is sensitive and where learners, minorities or majorities, feel that it is not honest what you are doing. It needs to be a safe space for everybody…that also includes young people who might be provocative to their responses to minorities should feel that they are respected in the way that they express themselves.” (Dr. Lutz van Dijk)
Lutz van Dijk is a German-Dutch historian and pedagogue. He has written many award-winning books for young adults and has been translated into several languages. In 2001 he co-founded HOKISA, a children’s home in Cape Town, South Africa, which cares for children living with HIV/AIDS. Dr. Lutz is featured on the Stories that Move video series to share on the topic of creating safe spaces in our classrooms. One of his main points challenges educators to be more honest with themselves and their students about assumptions, stereotypes, and prejudices in hopes of moving thinking forward.
The students at my school know what to say in the classroom. Sometimes that language will change outside of the classroom, in the halls, or on social media. When it does, that shocks us. We might say: “Student X said that? That’s not the person I know in my room.” But then maybe we should move forward and continue to ask ourselves: “Do I really know all of this student’s sides? Have I allowed her to show herself? Or rather, have I censored her by setting expectations of acceptable ideas?” I am then led to my most troubling question: “Is this set of social norms and my own classroom environment actually moving tolerance and acceptance forward at all?” I am beginning to believe that it is not. After all, we teachers are great at intellectualizing — but are we really open to hearing what our students have to say? Can we handle their truths?
Seven years ago a Serbian student came to me after school. We were studying Romeo & Juliet and had looked also at Zlata’s Diary earlier that year. To compliment this study, I had shown “Sarajevo’s Romeo & Juliet”, a CNN report on a young couple, one Bosnian and one Serb, killed by sniper fire trying to escape Sarajevo’s ethnic warfare in the 1990’s. My student challenged me and made a statement to the effect of: “You are not from here (Belgrade), and you don’t know enough about this issue’s effect on our lives. You are not allowed to discuss this with us.”
I remember feeling angry, offended, and defensive.
A few years later, a British Pakistani student came forward to report that I had an ‘overly feminist” classroom, which was making it hard for him to be successful in English.
Again, I felt angry, offended, and defensive
On reflection, both of these incidents, for me, point towards something about my classroom culture that may not be safe enough for everyone to be heard, for everyone’s dignity to be honored. I also wonder if it’s even possible to have such a classroom culture? However, I am clear that authentic and honest experiences like these make me all the more committed to educational tools like Stories that Move: Toolbox Against Discrimination, because I’m still troubled by the word that came to me while watching 14-year-old Tyrell. Guilty.
I think I have some more work to do on myself. I wonder if we all do.
Consider coming to share your thoughts at the professional development seminar on Stories that Move 27-28 of September 2019 in Amsterdam to get to know the resources and stories of this online and free teaching tool. We hope to engage in open, in-depth discussions with colleagues about the challenges that we and our students face.
REGISTER
Recent Posts
Stories that Have Moved Me: Honest Dialogue on Honest Dialogue
Meet Nikki! Interview with Cultures of Dignity Intern
“Are You Ok?” How to help the people we care about
The post Stories that Have Moved Me: Honest Dialogue on Honest Dialogue appeared first on Cultures of Dignity.
